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Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown of California is warning about the negative impact of federal policies on his state's newly balanced budget, which is a ruefully funny twist. Up to Election Day, Brown was cheerleading loudly for President Barack Obama, architect of the ever-expanding welfare state. Now California's governor is warning his citizens that it takes lots of dough to satisfy the appetite of a potbellied federal government.

"Great risks and uncertainties lie ahead," Brown said in a Jan. 24 state of the state address. "The federal government, the courts, or changes in the economy all could cost us billions."

I'm sure the governor loses sleep over sequestration -- the automatic 10% cuts in the federal budget that, given Washington's political divide, are certain to occur on March 1. Annual state aid of about $83 billion would be trimmed. Brown also has a gnawing concern about Obamacare, which kicks in next year. "The ultimate costs of expanding our health-care system under the Affordable Care Act are unknown. Ignoring such known unknowns would be folly...," he said.

If Brown is worried about the costs of federal policies, you should be worried, too. After all, Brown is "the smartest guy in American politics," according to Vice President Joe Biden. This sage governor gazed into the economic future and saw a fog bank. President Obama, it appears, has ushered us into an age of confusing complexity at a potentially enormous cover charge. For example, the 2,000-page Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (an egregious instance of mislabeling that should be investigated by the FDA), has engendered 13,000 pages of rules, according to a GOP estimate. Compliance costs will be substantial. Health experts warn of premium shocks on Oct. 1, when insurers price their new coverages.

BASED ON STOCKS' RECENT STRONG performance, investors might seem immune to such fears. I guarantee you, they are not. I've fielded phone calls from nervous money managers with concerns that either Obama or the ideological diehards in Congress will blow up the fragile recovery. The perception that investors are complacent is an illusion. They are twitch-prepared to bolt from the field.

The market is higher in spite of Obamanomics, not because of it. The Federal Reserve's low-rate regime, kept in place because of high unemployment, presents prudent investors and cautious savers with a Hobson's choice: Either choose "safe" investments with such low yields that they are, in fact, producing negative returns and thus actually unsafe, or plunge one's savings into risky stocks and real estate, where the returns for now at least are positive. In short, as long as low rates prevail, then normally cautious investors must risk their necks to get any sort of reward at all. The Federal Reserve won't change its low-rate policies until unemployment drops to 6.5% from its current 7.9%. Obama's policy of extending unemployment benefits and food stamps for laid-off workers lessens the urgency for these people to find work and, consequently, keeps the jobless rate high, perpetuating the unvirtuous cycle.

OBAMACARE IS BROWN'S IMMEDIATE CONCERN -- another rich irony, given that California was the first state to pass laws implementing the health-insurance scheme. Brown must expand Medi-Cal, its program for Medicaid recipients, and federal rules make this "incredibly complex," Brown noted.

Savers and prudent investors have a great deal more to worry about than Brown does. In addition to concern over the economic impact of sequestration and Obamacare, they must keep a hawk's eye on federal regulators -- especially the Environmental Protection Agency -- and on members of Congress who are determined to rewrite the corporate tax code.

The EPA, for all intents and purposes, is eliminating the use of coal. The agency also is at work on clean-air, -water, and emissions standards that industry claims will increase the cost of producing electricity from oil and gas. EPA says there will be no impact.

A research report last November for the National Association of Manufacturers claims that just six of several dozen EPA proposals would cost the economy $100 billion a year, resulting in the elimination of nine million jobs over a decade. The EPA's own studies says the cost would be $36 billion to $111 billion annually -- with the impact on employment ranging from 49,000 jobs lost to 30,500 created.

On Capitol Hill, there's talk of a financial-transactions tax, higher taxes on derivatives, options, and short-selling, and a reduction in corporate depreciation allowances -- all potential negatives for the economy.

Brown, in his speech, decried the expansion of the "coercive power of government" and quoted 16th-century French essayist Michel de Montaigne, who famously said, "The most desirable laws are those that are rarest, simplest, and most general; and I even think that it would be better to have none at all than to have them in such numbers as we have." Fat chance of that.